"Why?"
"Gen'ral principles." Sam said no more but took out his harmonica, ever in one hip pocket, and crooned into it. A jiggly-jazz edition of Mendelssohn's Wedding March strained through the curtains of Sam's drooping mustache.
"Speakin' wide, the weddin' cake of matrimony has been mostly mildewed for me," said Mormon reflectively, "but there was one thing about my last wife I sure admired. Uncommon thing in woman an' missin' in some men."
Sam, eager for chaffing, fell.
"What was that, Mormon? I heerd she was a good cook."
"It warn't her cookin', though that was prime when she was in the humor. But she sure c'ud attend to her own business, an' there's damn few can do that. Sandy's one of the few. I can't call another to mind jest now."
Sam grinned.
"You sure had me that time, ol' hawss. An' the mildew on the weddin' cake warn't none of yore fault. That sort of pastry's too rich for me to tackle. I used to wonder why they allus put frostin' on weddin' cake. I reckon it's a warnin'—or else sarcasm."
"Ef you ever git roped thataway, Sam, you're goin' to fall high an' hard," said Mormon. "You'll come to consciousness hawg-tied an' branded."
"That the way it was with you?"